FLASHBACK: President Akufo-Addo with some nurses
PRESIDENT Akufo-Addo has announced government’s intention to employ 32,000 more nurses this year to augment the number of health workers in the public sector.
He said this follows the employment of 16,502 health workers in 2017 aside 33,116 teachers recruited by the Ghana Education Service in the same period.
Addressing this year’s May Day parade in Kumasi, the Ashanti Regional capital, yesterday, the president indicated that his government’s commitment to job creation will be manifested through the implementation of its flagship programmes such as the ‘One District, One Factory, ‘One Village, One Dam’ and ‘Planting for Food and Jobs.’
He stated that this commitment would also be seen in the vigorous implementation of projects by the development authorities set up to prosecute long-term development goals to achieve economic freedom for the nation.
“It is important to note that there was low employment in the public sector of these two critical areas for more than three years before my government took over last year,” he disclosed, and added that the ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ programme had offered employment to some Ghanaians in the agricultural sector.
According to him, the programme is being improved upon after its success based on lessons learnt, and that this year government will expand it to cover 500,000 farmers.
General Secretary of Organised Labour, Dr Yaw Baah, said lack of decent employment is the greatest challenge facing the country.
“Out of nearly 13 million Ghanaians who are eligible to work, just about 2 million (or 15 percent) have jobs that can be described as decent, in relative terms,” he indicated
He posited that about 11 million Ghanaians (or 85 percent) are working in very precarious conditions with no hope for the future.
“Mr. President, it is indeed very disheartening to note that even the few Ghanaians who have some form of decent employment are constantly being threatened with redundancy,” Dr Baah pointed out.
He cited the recent layoff of 2,000 workers of Goldfields Ghana Limited and the mass retrenchment of 5,000 workers of AGA in 2015, to buttress his point.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi